The concept of parting in John Donneʼs love lyrics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58423/2786-6726/2025-2-203-220Keywords:
John Donne, cognitive metaphor, concept, love lyrics, “Songs and Sonets”, partingAbstract
The article offers an analysis and interpretation of the concept of parting in the love lyrics of the English Baroque writer John Donne (1572–1631). It has been stated that this concept occupies a prominent place in the thematic and ideological framework of the poet’s collection “Songs and Sonets” — being most notably represented in John Donne’s well-known “valedictions”: “A Valediction: Of My Name, in the Window”, “A Valediction: Of the Booke”, “A Valediction: Of Weeping”, and “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”. This concept is also developed, in one way or another, in such poems as “Song (Sweetest love, I do not goe)”, “The Expiration”, and “The Computation”. It has been also suggested that, considering how frequently John Donne turns to artistic elaboration of this concept, it held significant importance for the English author. The writer treats the act of parting in an unconventional way — as something entirely natural and even necessary for the development of any romantic relationship, something that poses no threat to those who truly know how to love. At the same time, the poet does not deny the deeply traumatic experience of separation for lovers. This is why the concept of parting is consistently realised in his love lyrics through the rather traditional cognitive metaphor of “parting as death”. This metaphor often becomes especially prominent in John Donne’s poems through various semantic parallels and connections with other artistic structures. In some cases, the entire text of the poem serves merely as an explanation of this metaphor — in such cases, this trope plays a meaning-forming role, serving as the foundation and impulse for the unfolding of the lyrical plot or situation. A particular variation of the cognitive metaphor “parting as death” is John Donne’s metaphor “parting as sleep”, through which the concept of parting is presented in the poem “Song (Sweetest love, I do not goe)”. Such an understanding of death as sleep was, in general, highly characteristic of Baroque literature and, therefore, seems entirely organic for John Donne, posing no conflict in interpretation.
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